General Electric Managed to Keep Their Tax Return Under 60,000 Pages

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Recently, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was chattin’ up some citizens at a townhall meeting where he told a little anecdote about asking a GE “tax officer” how long the company’s tax return was for this year. He was told (and the Weekly Standard confirmed) that it was in the nabe of 57,000 pages. Granted, GE filed their return electronically, so there’s no way we can officially know what the count is but the combination of the world’s best tax law firm and a grip of savvy loaned KPMG employees managed to keep it under 60k. Nice job, everyone. [TWS via TaxProf]

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The IRS Isn’t Resting on the Sabbath

If you refuse to use the White House’s tax savings tool purely out of spite then you’ll be happy to know that 180 IRS locations across this great land will be open this Saturday to help you out with things like the Homebuyer tax credit, the American Opportunity Credit, the Making Work Pay credit, and the Expanded Earned Income Credit.

Now we realize that the mere thought of setting foot inside an IRS location will cause many you to break out in boils, the other option is to go to a VITA location and get assistance from one of the many college students out there that are giving amateur advice so that they have one more activity on their resumé. They’re available throughout tax season. They are volunteers, after all.


The Service is trying to make this sound way more fun than it actually is by calling them “open houses”:

“We are holding these special open houses to give taxpayers who are struggling in these difficult economic times more opportunity to work directly with IRS employees to resolve their tax issues,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We will host more than 180 open houses this Saturday.”

Whether Dougie will be on hand at one of the many locations to shed out his wisdom (or maybe get some advice) hasn’t been made clear.

More than 180 Local IRS Offices Open this Saturday to Help Taxpayers [IRS.gov]

Making Work Pay Tax Credit May Make Taxpayers Pay

Filed under: ironic press releases from the Treasury that we love to get.

News from our favorite federal taxation authority this morning reveals that while the IRS believes they did everything they were supposed to, some taxpayers may have taken their Making Work Pay credits incorrectly, causing them to actually owe money instead of celebrating free money. Oops! The Treasury Inspector General did their best to warn everyone this could happen and, oh look, it did.

Overall, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) implemented the Making Work Pay Credit as intended by Congress, according to a report publicly released today by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

However, the report also found that approximately 13.4 million taxpayers who received the credit may owe taxes because adjustments to the withholding tables did not take into consideration all taxpayer circumstances. For example, single taxpayers with more than one job, joint filers where both spouses work or one or both of them have more than one job, taxpayers who receive pension payments, and Social Security recipients who receive wages are among those who may be negatively affected.

The Making Work Pay credit is an economic stimulus provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The credit is advanced to taxpayers by their employers through withholding reductions which results in an increase in taxpayers’ take home pay. The credit is effective for Tax Years 2009 and 2010.

“The Making Work Pay Credit is a key tax credit designed to increase spending and stimulate the economy,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “However, many taxpayers who are accustomed to receiving refunds when they file their tax returns may have owed taxes and incurred penalties in 2009 and may yet again in 2010 because they were advanced more of the credit than they were entitled to claim,” Mr. George added. “My office issued a report in November 2009 warning of this possibility and encouraging the IRS to increase outreach and waive penalties for taxpayers who may be negatively affected by the credit. We still believe further actions are needed to ensure no taxpayer is unfairly penalized.”

The November 2009 report warning this could go down mentions that some taxpayers were proactive and adjusted their withholding so as not to be impacted by the potential “free money” presented by this “credit” which, for some taxpayers, will turn into money owed back to the Treasury or even tax penalties.

The credit was advanced to taxpayers by their employers through withholding reductions that result in an increase in take home pay, in the hopes that $400 ($800 for joint filers) more in each eligible taxpayer pocket might help increase spending and stimulate the economy. Because of the nature of the credit, however, some taxpayers may have had their taxes underwithheld at the end of the year.

Intended to stimulate whose economy?